French Open Men's Day Five Tips: Ramos with underdog potential over Fucsovics

French Open Men's Day Five Tips: Ramos with underdog potential over Fucsovics

Round two action at the French Open continues on Thursday, and returning to discuss today's value is our tennis columnist, Dan Weston...

Zverev with energy-sapping five-setter

We couldn't manage a men's hat-trick yesterday with underdog Juan Ignacio Londero unable to cover against Marco Cecchinato, and as I mentioned, there weren't any men's spots I was particularly confident about on a tricky day four card.

Life was also a little tricky for both Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev, who were pushed to five sets by Tommy Paul and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, respectively, although it should be noted that Ruud's win took just over 2.5 hours and Zverev's was markedly longer, at just over four hours - which could be a big problem for the German as the tournament progresses. Conversely, Rafa Nadal and Dominic Thiem breezed into round three in straight sets.

On Thursday, there's another tricky men's schedule, although there's a couple of spots where my model found some value. Action, as it has done this week, begins at 10:00 UK time.

Anderson could test Lajovic

Kevin Anderson looks a little big at 2.78 for his match with Dusan Lajovic. We mentioned several days ago about Lajovic being short before he was pushed to four sets by Gianluca Mager, and he looks short again here. Having said that, it's really tough to ascertain Anderson's current clay level, and level in general - he's lost 2/2 on clay prior to this tournament and 4/5 on all surfaces, and had only played nine main tour matches since he was injured at Wimbledon last year. However, based on the numbers that I do have, Anderson looks slight value here.

Ramos with better clay data than Fucsovics

There's also a couple of spots where some genuine clay-courters look undervalued against all-court players who have achieved decent hard court results since the tour resumed. Albert Ramos got us a winner already this week, with an easy win over Adrian Mannarino, and I'm surprised to see him as big as 3.00 against Marton Fucsovics - is this an after-effect from Fucsovics beating Daniil Medvedev in round one? Last year, Ramos had by far the better clay data.

Carreno-Busta over-valued for Pella meeting

US Open semi-finalist Pablo Carreno-Busta is in a similar position to Fucsovics for his match against Guido Pella - I'm struggling to justify the Spaniard as a heavy 1.31 favourite. Last year, PCB had unimpressive clay numbers, losing to the likes of Pedro Cachin, Jeremy Chardy (twice) and Reilly Opelka, although he did have some injury issues last year.

However, we have to go back to 2017 to find a year where Carreno-Busta had better clay data than Pella, who was still trying to break through from the Challenger Tour that year. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there was a shock here.

It's a difficult call about who to prefer our of Ramos (match win) or Pella (game handicap) but I am just about favouring Ramos for the match win at a generous-looking 3.00 today.

Numerous big names priced as heavy favourites

In other matches, big names continue their tournaments, with several priced under the 1.10 mark - including Novak Djokovic, Roberto Bautista-Agut and Matteo Berrettini. Denis Shapovalov, Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas are priced very slightly bigger, so there are plenty of seemingly one-sided clashes on Thursday as the tournament continues.